Completely by accident I captured a unique moment in time.

Completely by accident I captured a unique moment in time, that will never been seen in our lifetimes again and created a treasured memory for the town of Cirencester.

September 2018 I was commissioned to go up the tower of Parish Church in Cirencester to photograph the new market place in action. It was a sunny day and the market was on, it also happened to be my birthday, but I thought it might be a fun way to start the day!

Cirencester Parish Church– Kay Ransom Photography

The church warden handed me “the keys to the kingdom” (the keys to go up and the church, as it was not open to the public), one of which looked like the key to Gryffindor Tower!

I climbed the extremely tight staircase, with my camera backpack scraping along the side of the wall due to the lack of room and treading carefully on the steps suitable for a child’s foot and not a fully grown adult, I suspect they were a bit smaller in those days! The journey up was exhausting carrying kit but the reward of the view at the top is certainly worth it!

At the top of the church I was treated to panoramic views of the town and further afield to Cirencester Park. I photographed the market from an aerial view point – as per my commission and it wasn’t until the end of the shoot that something caught my eye…

Whilst I was looking through my zoom lens I noticed a rather splendid shot of Cecily Hill and as I glanced up my eye line lead me to the main drive of Cirencester Park in its full autumnal glory. This angle had never been shot before, it was only by chance that it caught my eye. I shot ten variations, waiting for gorgeous streaks of sunlight to bathe the park through the warm coloured branches and then finished up the shoot.

After clambering down the church tower, handing back the keys to Hogwarts I rushed into the edit suite to check the results. WOW I was blown away by how incredible this particular sequence of shots looked. I shared the best one on social media and it got around 20,000 views, the likes and comments were really quite overwhelming at the time.

It wasn’t until a year later I realised how special this shot really was. The Bathurst’s announced the many of the trees needed to be culled for health and safety reasons, so the avenue would be changed greatly.

Cirencester Park – The Broad Avenue

This avenue is now being managed by tree surgeons who have done a fantastic job I’d like to say, but never again in our life time will anyone be able to shoot or see that perfect moment again. So I am very proud to have created this memory for the town of Cirencester and it can now been seen in print on the information board within the park and also it has won an award!